Comments by "Gaza is not Amalek" (@Ass_of_Amalek) on "How Fast-Growing Weeds Become Charcoal And Eco-Bricks | Insider Business" video.

  1. it would have been worth pointing out that reducing firewood and wood coal usage also combats desertification by saving trees. that's a verybig issue in a lot of african countries, and I'm pretty sure that includes senegal (it includes parts of the sahara and sahel)
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  2.  @theloniuspunk383  removal of trees for firewood has big potential to cause an ecological disaster. a good example is the difference you can see if you just look at satellite images of the border between the dominican republic and haiti - haiti is deforested, and on the other side of the border they still have trees. the reason is almost entirely firewood.
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  3.  A R  in drought-threatened areas, planting trees tends to be a lot more difficult than preserving trees, because old trees native to the habitat have deep roots that reach into the groundwater, whereas young trees need to be consistently watered for years before their roots are deep enough. young trees also are more threatened by herbivorous animals, which often kill small trees but usually only damage large trees. places like the sahel are really bad for cutting firewood, as they only support sparse tree growth, so a given area can only yield little firewood, but the trees that are there are very important for preserving the precarious level of regional water retention and supporting wildlife and human populations, and are difficult to replant.
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  4. the ecological problem is that floating plants with the leaves in the air reduce oxygen levels in the water by blocking light from getting in the water, and using that light to oxygenate the air instead of underwater plants using it to oxygenate the water, but then when parts of the plant cover die, they rot in the water, feeding microbes that draw more oxygen from the water. this way, floating plants can dramatically reduce the amounts of both plants and animals that a body of water can support - plants lack light, animals lack oxygen. so basically they are pretty, but you really want them to cover only a fraction of a pond.
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